That way of thinking is a bit problematic when it comes to a game that should please hundrets of thousands of different players and that should meet the data collected from prior games. TL:DR: The oppionon of non season players are completely useless because noone makes a game for people who like only non seasonal play.
Seasons aere what brings players bake and generate money with more and new mtx and whatnot. Before we go into a pros and cons debate about it: If seasonal play wasn’t making money the system would be dead already and replaced by something else.
I wish seasonal play was optional because in some seasons I simply don’t feel the season theme and don’t want to interact with it in hte long run. There might be some intresting bits I want to experince and would happiely do with an old toon without regrinding whatever stuff i need to reach the few bits that intrest me. That’s just me and a ton of other people might like the theme. I won’t kill the fun for those players because they want something different from me because they have the equal right to be treated as I do. I have the benefit of having minmaxed toons arround that makes everything easy as pie. Season players have a competition at hand and leaderboards and races and a level of stress I simply don’t care for anymore. I think seasonal players deserve some goodies for for jumping on the treaadmill again and again.
I’m not that special of snoweflake to demand game changes because my taste is different. I think you won#t find enough people who want to change the norm of seasonal content to even discuss this further. Still it’s intresting but you need to find some realy selfish and self centered people to make changes so developers and publishers invest into a game system they’ll most likely loose money with.
I honestly don’t understand your aversion to MTX rewards. They give no benefit in-game at all. If I buy a supporter pack for a certain season and I gain access to MTX that are not available at any other time, is it unfair as well?
In PoE I have plenty of MTX that you can’t buy, just from supporter packs. Do you think that’s unfair as well? Just because I spent money on something that was exclusive in time? It’s not tied to a certain style of play, but it’s tied just to a certain point in time and having money.
And if you don’t think that’s unfair, then what’s the difference? Because in one I spend money and in the other I just spend time?
I never said that, though. I was just responding to a player that thinks that seasons don’t need anything,.
Seasons are just what makes the devs keep coming up with new content ideas regularly. Without seasons the new stuff comes much more infrequently and with larger intervals. Just compare the rate of updates on games with and without seasons.
But you also need players in standard as well. You can’t just treat it as a dumping ground, otherwise you get D3 where players join for a couple weeks, do the season and return 3 months later for the other season.
All I’m saying is that standard having stability and no stress, no time constraints and thus less challenge is more than enough for lots of players to join it.
However, having seasons being just about the challenge and the race alone won’t appeal to that many players to keep a season with enough players to justify maintaining it.
Seasons always come with new stuff to pay for and everyone knows it ^^.
Yeah but compare the quality of an expension with the quality of a season. Seasons are cheap ways for developers to make easy money and there is nothing wrong about it. But even if you look at PoE and what Seasons add to the base game the addition is pretty small and mostly not significant in any way.
Non seasonal realms always have been the dumping ground because no developer cares about it. Look at the concurrent player numbers once seasons start and once seasons are about to end. You have almost no non seasonal players. Sure this might be a golden opportunity to cater to non seasonal players and to claim a market noone cared for so far but I think the ammount of players is to little to put real work into non seasonal realms. I don’t like this state but it is what it is and i rather have entertaining seasonal content then bad non seasonal stuff.
I have some of those. From way back in Alpha bought several supporter packs. That was with real world money, has zero to do with the game and I will be several more in the future to support EHG. The difference to me is one is something that anyone can do (money) by spending the time (raising it) doing what they choose to do. The other is something anyone can do (spending time) by playing something they might not enjoy.
I see those as different. Someone else may not. I can’t make them see them as different anymore than they can make me. It’s fine. Difference of opinion/viewpoint. This isn’t a one way or the highway kind of thing to me.
Pretty sure he’s talking about me, not you…
For the record, I’ve never demanded a change of any kind to the game about this. I stated I agree with the original comment by DirePenguin that I don’t like special ‘trophies’ for participation.’ But I never stated anything regarding a demand that EHG do it based on my suggestion. I expressed a difference in taste. i.e. look again at the Hamburger comparison. Just because you like certain stuff on your hamburger, doesn’t mean I have to like it and by my not liking it I’m not preventing you from eating yours how you want it.
But do continue with the name-calling. It’s a very clear-cut way to determine the capacity of someone to actually have a discussion (like what was occurring.)
Phrased like that as a statement, this is utterly wrong. Almost everybody who create games make them as a finished product, targetting people who will play once or twice.
Some add seasons later to keep the game alive longer, some prefer adding regular expansions, but apart from GGG and EHG, next to nobody makes games with the sole purpose of having seasons.
However, I have to agree on that bit.
While it is not the best way to sell a game at the beginning, it is definetely a very solid business model if you want to focus on one game for a very long time.
If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be spreading the way it is.
What I think is funny, is that I don’t think anyone is saying not to have Seasons. Or even not have Seasonal-focused MTX. But that so many are hell-bent that it should only be obtainable by people to play on the Season realms is just mind-boggling.
If Seasonal play is good enough to demand the resources, and money, to maintain special servers for it, why does it require special hand-outs, to entice people to play? (which I think is one of @Llama8 's points). Maybe Eternal realms need some special treatment, since so many think they are so terrible, and can’t stand on their own? What’s good for the goose, and all, right?
How about, once a Season ends, all that special MTX you acquired goes to Eternal realm, and you can’t wear it when playing a different season? I mean, it’s season-specific, right? So you shouldn’t be able to use it in a different season… Seasonal MTX gets treated like Seasonal characters, gear and stash.
Or, is this more of the same crap we used to hear from the PvP and Hardcore crowd, years ago? That they demand special treats for their preferred playstyles for reasons…which are usually nothing more than wanting to feel/be special, just because of how they prefer to play a game?
My exact point as well. In fact the whole post reiterates my thinking and I agree.
This is the participation award I mentioned as well. I’m not a fan of them. I’m not going, for a minute, blame EHG or stop playing if they decide to do it anyway but I’ve always felt the reward of participation is that…you participate.
Personally, I think this has gone on long enough. There are players entrenched in their positions (I assume I’m also one of them) and they’re not having a healthy discussion anymore. It’s just “I want this” vs “I want this”. Neither side is really open to the point of view of the other.
I’ll just wait for 1.0, see how the EHG wants to do things and (maybe) voice my opinion then. So I’m retiring myself from this thread which I don’t see as productive anymore.
Carry on.
PS: @CaiusMartius, that comment was not aimed at you.
PPS: If anyone feels like I was disrespecful, I apologize, that was never my intention.
Absolutely no worries. None of this is a make or break deal for me (honestly very few things are.) I was simply expressing my reasons and thoughts on it but I’m by no means trying to tell EHG one way or the other is wrong. Preference. Like my Hamburger.
And Blizzard. So basically the top 2 plus EHG. I don’t think there are many current aRPGs around (ignoring GD since it’s largely SP/has no dedicated servers).
Yeah, something like that. Why is the pleasure in playing the game in whatever a person’s desired style (PvE/PvP/SC/HC/seasons/non-seasons/etc) no longer enough to get people to play the game in their preferred style/whatever?
Not really.
All the Diablos are designed as complete, polished games at launch. Most marketing is focused on non seasonal players. The seasons come later, to add longevity, but are not the primary focus.
Granted, they come earlier and earlier (probably TOO early in Diablo 4).
With D1, 2 & possibly 3 I’d agree but I don’t think I’d agree regarding #4. D4’s season 1 started ~1.5 months after the launch. That’s not “hey, our players have played D4 a lot & have started to drift off to other games, what could we do to bring them back?”, that’s seasons as an integral part of the game that were planned & worked on well before launch.
It really disappointed me, tbh. D4, during beta, felt like an MMO, with an ARPG playstyle, which was really intriguing – a long-term character builder, in an ARPG format. But then, they immediately went into the shitty Seasonal format, and just fscked it all up (among other things).
Then show me games that do this. That care for non seasonal players instead of just using non seasonal as a garbage bin for all the stuff that was made in seasonal play. I still wait for a game where non seasonal play is the main drifing factor and not seasonal play. I don’t know any game that does this in the online server restrictive H&S genre so pretty please bring me up to speed and tell me what game offers this because I’ll 100% take a look at it. Sure you could say every offline game or P2P game works like that but those normaly don’t come with seasons ^^.
Why? You do something extra you get something extra. This is how life works. On top of it the people earn money with this kind of stuff. I don’t even want to start to imagine how many people waste money they need for other stuff on game skins because they fear they might never get them.
So from a “Work for nice stuff!” and a “Thankfully the game I like makes money and stays afloat for another month!” perspective seasonal only goodies are a good thing ^^.
Sure in a perfect world I make it like “Disfigure” did it and sell support packs that you can buy if you like the game. Sadly I think a robust financial plan is better then gambling on people opening their money after they get what they wanted.
